We have lift off! (Rocket stove)

I had a great day at the tip on Friday, found a piece of metal I felt would be perfect for making my rocket stove work better, as previous version was not big enough and was not drawing enough oxygen to maintain fire levels.

It worked!!!!!

The pot had water and was boiling in a few minutes, frypan sizzling hot in no time at all, and seems quite easy to maintain the heat.  The only downside really is that there is little temperature control... It's hot or hot.

The basic premise as seen in the diagram below is feeding small diameter sticks into a chamber surrounded by insulation (easy to create with ash between the wall of the chamber and an external surround) The chamber allows air to flow in and burn the small diameter sticks at a high heat, creating less smoke emission and high temperature emitted through the top of the flue.

These stoves are being introduced as an alternative cooking source through africa and along with solar ovens being taken up as they require essentially scrap wood as opposed to existing charcoal stoves which need expensive and high polluting fuel

If you are interested in reading more about rocket stoves try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_stove

Maybe waffles on the rocket stove can be next :)

Have a happy day xo

Garden update, may 2012

The garden is growing beautifully.

This bed has lettuce (with some baby broccoli planted - as the lettuce is not too far away from being munched and will make way for the broccoli to grow, We have started to pick some leaves but not whole plants, then garlic, some of which are growing strong, others didn't do so well. Onions getting bigger, beetroots as starting to plump up at the base - so excited for our home grown roast beetroot salads in winter. Carrots and parsnips also just starting to thicken....

This bed has rocket still going strong, picking basil in top left and dill bottom right, cabbages and broccoli starting to get bigger (although having to watch them carefully for catterpillers) but the stars of this bed today are the legumes, broad beans bottom left to top right (grown from my own seed) and peas the other direction. Both just over the height of the walls of the bed and looking healthy as. There are tall poles attached to each of the corners, the peas have a frame in already to start climbing up, wheras broad beans will just have twine wrapped around them as they grow as they need support but don't use it to grow, whereas peas send out little feelers that grab onto the trellis and pull themselves up...

I can almost taste them!

Have a happy day xo :)

Gratefulness

Rasperries surprising me with red globes of goodness, it didn't last very long as a ring....

Sunshiny days spent in the garden and at the beach with a friend, eating icecream by the bay....

Knowing that God is with us, never forsakes us, even when we feel a little lost...

Beautiful babies to create for. This is a jumpsuit with a skirt added to make a little dress for winter, perfect for little Hadassah, my friends' new daughter.

Weekends :)

Scrummy Muffins

Having muffins for breakfast means getting up earlier, to finish the recipe started the night before, but theres something in getting up early, seeing the sun rise. Takes 5 mins to mix and knead the dough, then you have 40 mins or so to let them rest until cooking. Lots of time that for me at least was productive time. Shower, cup of tea, quiet time, putting dishes away....

And then breakfast of an English muffin straight off the grill with butter and local honey... mmmmm

I whinged the other day that my hubby almost never picks up the camera so he insists on taking one this morning. Thanks babe.

ENGLISH MUFFINS (sourdough recipe)

The night before: combine 2 C flour, 1C water and 1C starter

Leave overnight.

In the morning put 1C starter aside to keep, mix in

1/4C milk powder

1/2tsp baking soda

1/2tsp salt

1tsp sugar

and enough flour 1/2-1C to make a dough that sticks together.

Turn onto floured surface and knead well until smooth and no longer stickly, adding more flour if needed (for 2-3 mins.) Flour generously and roll to 1/2inch thickness. cut out with drinking glass about 7-8cm diameter. Place on parchment or silicon baking sheet sprinkled with polenta. Sprinkle more polenta on top.  (Should get about 16 muffins from this recipe)

Leave to rise, covered in a warm place at lease half an hour.

Cook muffins kind of like a pancake, in lightly greased pan - cast iron is best for this if available.

7-8mins on low-med heat (I set the timer and get other things done while waiting.

Have a happy day xo

Gardening and Cooking with Friends

It was lovely to spend the morning gardening and cooking with some friends from the permaculture group and with some friends from church who are interested in similar things.

Jody and Deeann weeding the cherry tomato jungle - and all the subsequent weeds, pruning the grape vine and harvesting what they could.

We spent the morning gardening, below you can see the other garden bed near the house weeded, mulched and the rhubarb plants were dug up, divided and replanted with soil food - horse manure and dynamic lifter! We then stopped for (a couple of pots of) tea and lamingtons, and then spent the rest of the morning cooking. Made sweet chilli and tamarillo sauce, posted about that one last week, bottled pears and demonstrated and discussed drying food. I am currently experiementing with my first fruit leather.

Jody really enjoyed bottling fruit and was very proud of her bottle of pears.

Working with 4 is so much more productive than one.

Thanks for those who came lending a hand. hope you had fun, and your cuttings grow well!

Have a lovely day xo

A new member of the family - needs a new home

On Sunday I went for a drive down the road, about 20 mins to Bewong - near the famous roadhouse to pick up our new rabbit. We had two rabbits, but then discovered that on their own they were always going to stay two rabbits as they were both male - this isn't very helpful when you are hoping to develop small scale meat production. So we needed a female, and she was advertised in the paper.

Maisy is 8 weeks old and is a flemish giant x New Zealand rabbit - both larger meat breeds.

She is currently the same size as our other full size rabbits, and she has a long way to go - probably at least double the size. She was quite skittish when she arrived but within two days is much calmer, inquisitive, enjoying her greens and coming up to say hello and ask for pats when you walk past.

But her temporary cage is just temporary, so we are converting large, long rabbit cage to two sections, here is the labourer creating a second door, we have already put a middle divider in, and raised the cage off the ground. makes it dryer, warmer and cleaner. Most weekends we give them some grass time which they love.

Have to wait a few months for Maisy to finish growing, and then we'll see how she goes as a mummy!

another use for milk - cheese

My work has started getting milk delivered.

Problem is not everyone looks at the dates before they open the next bottle of milk...

Problem?

There were three unopened 2L bottles of milk at work today that were out of date...

So I thought I'd make cheese - Ricotta cheese is one of the most easy things to make in the world.

1. Put milk in a clean saucepan

2. Heat up to lukewarm

3. Put some lemon juice/vinegar - or as I tried tonight some junket or vegetarian rennet in the milk, stir then let the curds form (the white lumpy stuff in the photo below)

My experience is that with acids - like juice and vinegar - the curds are lumpy

With the rennet it formed a huge curd, which I then cut with a long knife into inch sized cubes and stirred while warm

4. use a slotted spoon to scoop the curds out into a colander (mine is one that was one that a large round of ricotta came in - so gets the perfect lines as seen in the next photo that is on the ricotta you purchase at the supermarket.)

5. Let it drain

6. If you want to you can use the whey for breadmaking, the yeast loves the protein in it.

 

I think Ricotta and spinach something is in order for dinner tomorrow night.

Have a Happy Day xo